Home Vegetable & Fruit Gardening – Organic Farming

Mulch and Tidying Up

When it is 65 degrees outside spending a few minutes in the garden is a pleasure. This late in the fall most of the garden is put to bed and there is not to much to do. So today was mostly enjoying the weather and tidying up.

I cut down the yellow raspberries, and removed the red raspberries still on the vine.

These are some of the berries I trimmed off.

I am not sure if I needed to trim off the old berries. However, they did not look good and I did not want them hanging on until next year. Hopefully, this was helpful. At least, the plants will not spend energy on old fruit.

While working in the raspberry beds I noticed how great the strawberries looked as they have turned color.

A beautiful strawberry plantAnother set of red strawberry leaves

Last week during another warm spell I raked maple leaves from a tree that my neighbor and I share.

The Norway Maple

This past spring it came down with tar spot, a disease that makes one or two black spots on every leaf. It is not an attractive disease, but it does not harm the tree. The weather is the most significant indicator if the disease will be around or not. This Spring we had the right weather. One nice feature of the tar spot is that it basically only affects Norway Maples, and will not affect other types of plants, so it can be used as mulch. So I raked the leaves , and ran them over with a lawn mover a couple of times and put them into the garden. The leaves broke down so quickly. From what I thought were a lot of leaves left me a small amount of compost/cover. Putting whole leaves into a garden is not usually recommended because they will not completely break down. If you want to use leaves just run them over with a lawn mower. They will break down during the Winter.

I raked some of the leaves on to the thyme to help protect them for against the winter

The temperatures seem to be getting cooler and are starting to get into the range were I need to start covering the berries, herbs, and garlic with straw. I want to wait for the temperatures to become more consistently cool.

I am also starting to think more about next year’s garden. I am starting to dream about next week’s goals. If you have any ideas let me know.

Enjoy this season, learn from last season, and look forward to next season.